Battle Scars
by Beanpot
Summary: Sam/Lorne. Season Four of Atlantis.


_A drabble I found on my harddrive and finished. This isn't my sandbox._

**Battle Scars**

As far as alien purity rituals went, this one wasn't all that bad. All they had to do was sit around in the steam room, naked but for the thin towels, and allow the heat and water to remove the impurities from their skin and mind. All Lorne had to do was keep his eyes from drifting over to where Col. Carter lay, stretched out and face down, naked except for the towel draped over her ass and the top of her thighs.

Her head was pillowed on her arms and faint wisps of hair were uncurling from her braids from the humidity. Her eyes were closed, but the scene of calm didn't fool Lorne who saw the tension in her shoulders and how her toes were curled against the bench. The ritual and priests may seem polite and docile, but Carter wasn't an idiot.

She shifted on the bench, reaching her arm behind her to reach a scratch on her back. As she did, the towel slipped down to the top of the crest of her ass. Lorne swallowed hard and went back to counting the ridges in the beam above him. He restarted the matra he had begun the moment they'd been handed the teeny tiny towels – "think pure thoughts, think pure thoughts, rain drops on roses, whiskers on kittens".

"Son of a bitch," Carter swore as she contoured her body off the bench and away from Lorne. He saw her hand twist up and strain to reach that inch of skin impossible to reach and as she did so, her back moved into the light and Lorne saw her.

The "holy fuck" escaped his lips before he could stop it, and Carter froze in place. The scars criss-crossed her back, new ones overlaying old ones. Everyone knew what she had done over the past decade, but, here, on her back, Lorne saw Carter's resume.

When he joined the Air Force, his Uncle Alan had pulled him aside to tell Lorne about his time in Vietnam. As he stared at his commanding officers back, one thing Uncle Alan had said stood out, "Kid, for every external scar, there are incalculable ones on the soul."

"Did I ever tell you about the time I was stuck in a hot house with SG1 for the first time?"

"Ma'am?" Lorne was startled by her voice and averted his eyes again as Carter readjusted herself on the bench as well as the towels.

"Just making conversation, Major," she replied, her voice slightly muffled. "This isn't my first time naked in a hot house. Just thought I could fill the time with stories as you seem to need a distraction."

Lorne grimaced slightly, unhappy he was so transparent. "Not necessary, ma'am." He paused before giving into the ridiculousness of the situation and said, "Besides, I really don't need the image of Gen O'Neill or Teal'c naked."

Carter chuckled and replied, "But you don't mind the image of a naked Daniel?"

"Oh, I figured he was the one who got you into the situation in the first place so wasn't there. Or was talking them out of human sacrifice," Lorne said.

As she laughed, the towel draped across her ass slipped even further down and Lorne decided it was mission in life to get her to laugh harder. He was so fascinated by how the muscles on her back quivered when she laughed that he missed the first part of her reply, "…not wrong. He was working in a temple with the General and it was Teal'c and I who ended up in the hut. We only ended up naked because they sprayed our clothes with some sticky substance that burned horribly. Suppose to be some great honor, but Teal'c scared the pants off of them – no pun intended – and they found some sheet looking things. Never heard the end about our toga party."

Her voice trailed off, as it tended to do when she talked about her friends.

"What would they say if they were here?" he asked.

Carter turned her head so she looked at him, shifting the pesky towel a little lower, and she came up on her elbows. Lorne immediately looked up at the roof. "If they were here? I'm pretty sure they'd kill you for even thinking of looking at me the way you've been trying not to look at me."

Lorne was many things, but a coward wasn't one of them. "You're naked. And you're you. I'd have to be dead not to look at you." He lowered his eyes and stared at right at her. Challenging.

She held his gaze then briefly dropped her eyes to scan his naked body. She blushed a shade of pink that started at her cheeks and went down her entire back. Lorne swallowed hard as the sight was both adorable and stunningly sexy.

"I'm not dead either, Major," Carter said as she met his eyes again. "I'm pretty sure if your teammates knew what I was trying not to think, they'd try to kill me, too."

Lorne raised his eyebrows at the images of his team fighting Carter. In reality, they'd find the whole thing hysterical and buy him a beer. Then hide. "I'm pretty sure you could take them," he said, smiling at the thought.

"Of course I would." A veil dropped over her eyes and she seemingly collapsed in on herself. "Most of these scars were…" Her voice trailed off. She took a few deep breaths and Lorne watched her lungs expand and contract. She began again, "I walked away from most of them and they didn't."

"I know. Everyone in the galaxy knows you punched Ba'al."

They sat on opposite corners of the small hut and just looked at each other, Carter pillowing her head on her hands and Lorne leaning back against the wall. The heat each was feeling no longer from the fires alone. It was no longer awkward, almost comforting and they no longer cared if a towel slipped. After awhile, Lorne leaned forward and gently laced his fingers through Carter's. She smiled at him and said, "I can't."

"I didn't ask for anything."

"I think that was more for me," she said, lips curving up at the edges as she unlaced her fingers from him and ran them through his hair. She tucked her hand back under her chin and then the door for the hut was opened. She rested her forehead on her hands and said, "Oh thank god."

It took a few more hours to get dressed, confirm they were pure in thought, and seal up the trade negotiations. As they sat in the puddle jumper, Lorne in the pilot seat and the rest of the team in the back, Carter said, "When I said I couldn't, I'm pretty sure I meant I couldn't in the hut."

Lorne twisted around in his chair and stared at her, jaw slightly dropped. She kept her eyes forward, refusing to look at him, but he saw her half-smile. He turned back around and concentrated on piloting the jumper towards the gate. With a grin he said, "So on the hut was an option? Next to the hut?"

"Under the hut?" she said, picking up his theme. "Between the huts? In a box, with a fox?"

"With bagel and some lox."

"I do not like them, Sam I am," Carter said, laughing.

"So, if you couldn't in the hut, you could…" his voice trailed and he dialed the gate for Atlantis.

"Yeah, I could."


End file.
